Welcome to The Lovely Red Fox's edition of 'How to build a capsule wardrobe'.
I've been so interested in this concept for a while; I'm always intrigued by those able to boil their wardrobe down to only a select number of clothing items.
While I've done a lot of pairing down in the last year and am finally letting go of some items to sell on Poshmark, I think it's important to disclose before we go any further that I am not currently living the capsule wardrobe life. I have a massive problem with hoarding and if I had to boil my items down and put the rest in boxes I would probably end up breaking into those boxes on the very first day to find 'that other shirt I like' because I am decision challenged.
That being said, I understand the value of capsule wardrobes, and it sounds like an experiment I should try to run with myself one day when I'm ready. We'll see.
For now I'd just love to use some of my favorite wardrobe pieces to illustrate what could potentially be a great capsule wardrobe for spring.
I've done a lot of reading on capsule wardrobes knowing I wanted to write this up and I've seen what a bunch of different people's opinions were on building one. Basically, the idea is to pare down your wardrobe to some core items — usually 40 or less — so that your wardrobe is literally smaller, and also easier to manage and get dressed everyday. The idea is to spend less time stressing getting dressed, and have less to sort through on a daily basis. So I love it in it's essence.
So here is what I have emerged with as my tips for a great Spring Capsule Wardrobe:
The idea is that you would wear these items and only these items for all of spring, so about 3 months. Then you'd curate a new wardrobe for summer, fall, etc. My main hurdle with this is that if you have to choose items that go with everything, it's harder to incorporate some of my favorite pieces with more intricate detail, like say a reindeer sweater. You really can't repeat a reindeer sweater that many times, because people will recognize it and it will lose it's special unicorn quality... making it a hard thing to have in your capsule wardrobe.
But I digress.
A lot of the numbers differed from person to person but I came up with quantities that made sense to me and my daily style. These items do not include pj's/ undergarments, work out clothes, leggings, socks or jewelry. For simplicity's sake I excluded these, just assume you have some of each of those things too.
For spring I curated a total of 37 pieces:
- 13 tops
- 2 dresses
- 5 layering pieces
- 8 bottoms
- 4 bags/ accessories (not including jewelry)
- 5 pairs shoes
Of my thirteen tops, I want to have a good variety for casual and more dressed up scenarios. I included eight knit tops that ranged from nicer to casual and are mostly neutrals but a couple have fun prints or detail. I also wanted to keep one light sweater for that one cold spring day you know there will be when you least expect it! All of these knits are going to be great for styling and outfit building, and can lend themselves to an office day at home (I'm wearing one of them right now as I type this!), or a fun evening with friends grabbing dinner out.
The other 5 tops are more dressy, and would be best for a nice date night or work/ family function. I like to have a few of these handy in case something comes up to get dressed up for!
Next comes the dresses and layering pieces. I love to choose a couple pieces that are a solid color that will style well but still have some interest! This olive romper is so great because it has so much interest with the lace fabric, but will pair well with both solids and prints. The grey dress is one of my staples because it has pockets (I know!!) and is a nice heathered gray and fits really nicely.
My layering pieces are varied. I want to pick a few fun colors in light colors to be festive for spring, maybe a touch of something special like embroidery on a cute denim jacket, and then I want to include something dressed up (I'm lookin' at you, favorite Modcloth blazer!), and a simple lightweight black button cardigan for when I'm just feelin' a tad chilly. This assortment of layering pieces should get me through most layering needs for the season.
Now onto the bottoms.
I am personally all about the skirts. So I chose to include 4 skirts, 2 pairs of denim, 1 pair of linen pants, and 1 pair of shorts to make up my 8 bottoms.
I chose nice neutral items for 4 of the items, and then decided to go with some fun pastel pops and floral prints for the other 4. I think what's important here is making sure that if you're adding some pieces that have more personality, to make sure they will match with a lot of your tops!
Lastly we have the accessories and shoes. Some capsules I saw out there were very shoe heavy, but I chose to limit mine more because I'm not as much of a shoe girl. Five pairs is actually probably more than I have in my regular rotation for a given season, but I decided to spice things up a little for fun. I chose 2 different flat options in different colors, a sandal, a fun spring heel, and a black bootie (because that's my staple everyday shoe).
For bags I've chosen a nice black backpack big enough to fit my ipad in for a day working at the local coffee shop, and also a light little crossbody for everyday. These should work for any outfit since I have the right sizes and two options for color.
For accessories, I'd recommend a pair of sunglasses that will match most of your tops, and a hair accessory to put your hair up with.
So lastly, I'll demonstrate a bunch of different outfits you could style using these 37 items! There are way more combos than this, so you could definitely wear all these items for a month and not repeat an outfit exactly, but here are my favorite 11 styles I came up with with my pieces!
Until Next Time,
No comments:
Post a Comment